If we
contemplate even a minute sector of life's vast range, we are faced with a
variety of living forms so tremendous that it defies all description. Yet
three basic features can be discerned as common to everything that has
animate existence, from the microbe to man, from the simplest sensations
to the thoughts of a creative genius:

These three basic facts were first found and formulated over 2,500
years ago by the Buddha, who was rightly called "the Knower of the World"
(//loka-vidu//). They are designated, in Buddhist terminology, the three
characteristics (ti-lakkhana) - the invariable marks or signs of
everything that springs into being, the "signata" stamped upon the very
face of life itself.

Of the three, the first and third apply directly to inanimate existence
as well as to the animate, for every concrete entity by its very nature
undergoes change and is devoid of substance. The second feature,
suffering, is of course only an experience of the animate. But the Buddha
applies the characteristic of suffering to all conditioned things, in the
sense that, for living beings, everything conditioned is a potential cause
of experienced suffering and is at any rate incapable of giving lasting
satisfaction. Thus the three are truly universal marks pertaining even to
what is below or beyond our normal range of perception.

The Buddha teaches that life can be correctly understood only if these
basic facts are understood. And this understanding must take place, not
only logically, but in confrontation with one's own experience.
Insight-wisdom, which is the ultimate liberating factor in Buddhism,
consists in just this experiential understanding of the three
characteristics as applied to one's own bodily and mental processes, and
deepened and matured in meditation.

To see things as they really are means to see them consistently in the
light of the three characteristics. Not to see them in this way, or to
deceive oneself about their reality and range of application, is the
defining mark of ignorance, and ignorance is by itself a potent cause of
suffering, knitting the net in which man is caught - the net of false
hopes, of unrealistic and harmful desires, of delusive ideologies and of
perverted values and aims.

Ignoring or distorting the three basic facts ultimately leads only to
frustration, disappointment and despair. But if we learn to see through
deceptive appearances, and discern the three characteristics, this will
yield immense benefits, both in our daily life and in our spiritual
striving. On the mundane level, the clear comprehension of impermanence,
suffering and non-self will bring us a saner outlook on life. It will free
us from unrealistic expectations, bestow a courageous acceptance of
suffering and failure, and protect us against the lure of deluded
assumptions and beliefs. In our quest for the supramundane, comprehension
of the three characteristics will be indispensable. The meditative
experience of all phenomena as inseparable from the three marks will
loosen, and finally cut, the bonds binding us to an existence falsely
imagined to be lasting, pleasurable and substantive. With growing clarity,
all things internal and external will be seen in their true nature: as
constantly changing, as bound up with suffering and as unsubstantial,
without an eternal soul or abiding essence. By seeing thus, detachment
will grow, bringing greater freedom from egoistic clinging and culminating
in Nibbana, mind's final liberation from suffering.